An e mail floods in. "On your first day you will need to present a report on marketing to the Department of Engineering. They are quite hostile, so be warned. You might want to get your head round the attached spreadsheets before the 12th as they are bound to ask lots of questions." 12 pages of incomprehensible figures are attached, though the general theme seems to be that I have to tell them they are fvcked

An e mail floods in. "On your first day you will need to present a report on marketing to the Department of Engineering. They are quite hostile, so be warned. You might want to get your head round the attached spreadsheets before the 12th as they are bound to ask lots of questions." 12 pages of incomprehensible figures are attached, though the general theme seems to be that I have to tell them they are fvcked

An e mail floods in. "On your first day you will need to present a report on marketing to the Department of Engineering. They are quite hostile, so be warned. You might want to get your head round the attached spreadsheets before the 12th as they are bound to ask lots of questions." 12 pages of incomprehensible figures are attached, though the general theme seems to be that I have to tell them they are fvcked

You could start by asking them who has audited the spreadsheet and when they look puzzled follow up with “you do know that spreadsheets are the most efficient mechanism in the world for generating incorrect analyses and unsupportable analysis software”

An e mail floods in. "On your first day you will need to present a report on marketing to the Department of Engineering. They are quite hostile, so be warned. You might want to get your head round the attached spreadsheets before the 12th as they are bound to ask lots of questions." 12 pages of incomprehensible figures are attached, though the general theme seems to be that I have to tell them they are fvcked

Are they paying you to read the spreadsheets and prepare your report before "Day 1"

Sacrificial lamb comes to mind. You are on a short term contract so presenting the findings to a very hostile department won't harm the permanent staff. Saw this happen a fair bit with some call centres.

If you have the chance start cramming whatever the latest incarnation of Six Sigma is. It should be harder for an engineering department to argue with you when it sounds like you are well versed in those quality and efficiency systems.

Logged

Some days I think the only thing keeping me from becoming homicidal is that the voices can't agree on which weapon would be the most fun.

Sacrificial lamb comes to mind. You are on a short term contract so presenting the findings to a very hostile department won't harm the permanent staff. Saw this happen a fair bit with some call centres.

If you have the chance start cramming whatever the latest incarnation of Six Sigma is. It should be harder for an engineering department to argue with you when it sounds like you are well versed in those quality and efficiency systems.

Six Sigma is not what it was. Suffered from the idiot purists that demanded everything had to be six sigma levels* and companies that invented perversions that watered it hopelessly down

Shame really

* they used to hate it when I asked stuff like this: which is the most successful company in the world in terms of revenue and profit per employee: Roger Federer. And is his first serve % six sigma levels of error? No. So don’t make me make initial software coding errors per line the same either.

I'm still more than a little narked that at one of the call centres I'd been working at the rest of the department had funding for six sigma training and I was left out despite having implemented 3 improvements that would have saved enough money to grant me black belt certification. Didn't realise at the time because I would ignore office politics and concentrate on getting the work done but looking back I should have seen the writing on the wall back then.

Logged

Some days I think the only thing keeping me from becoming homicidal is that the voices can't agree on which weapon would be the most fun.